Data Science vs. Big Data vs.

Data Analytics
By Avantika Monnappa

Table of Contents

 What Is Data Science?

 What is Big Data?
 What is Data Analytics?
 Applications of Data Science
 Applications of Big Data
 Applications of Data Analytics
 How Are These Technologies Impacting the Economy?
 What Does a Data Scientist, Big Data Professional and Data Analyst Do?
 Skills Required to Become a Data Scientist
 Skills Required to Become a Big Data Specialist
 Skills Required to Become a Data Analyst
 Salary Trends

Data is everywhere and part of our daily lives in more ways than most of us realize.
The amount of digital data that exists—that we create—is growing exponentially.
According to estimates, global creation of data will top 180 zetabytes.
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Therefore, there is a need for professionals who understand the basics of data
science, big data, and data analytics, and can do comparisons such as data science
vs data analytics, which help differentiate between the various data processing
disciplines.

These three terms are often heard frequently in the industry, and while their
meanings share some similarities, they have some profound differences. This article
will give you a clear understanding of the meaning, application and skills required
to become a data scientist, big data specialist, or data analyst.
Let’s begin by examining each concept separately.

What Is Data Science?

Data science is a field that deals with unstructured, structured data, and semi-
structured data. It involves practices like data cleansing, data preparation, data
analysis, and much more.

Data science is the combination of: statistics, mathematics, programming, and

problem-solving;, capturing data in ingenious ways; the ability to look at things
differently; and the activity of cleansing, preparing, and aligning data. This umbrella
term includes various techniques that are used when extracting insights and
information from data.

What is Big Data?

Big data refers to significant volumes of data that cannot be processed effectively
with the traditional applications that are currently used. The processing of big data
begins with raw data that isn’t aggregated and is most often impossible to store in
the memory of a single computer.

Big data is a buzzword used to describe immense volumes of data, both

unstructured and structured, that can inundate a business on a day-to-day basis. Big
data is used to analyze insights, which can lead to better decisions and strategic
business moves.
In summary, Gartner provides the following definition of big data: “Big data is high-
volume, and high-velocity or high-variety information assets that demand cost-
effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight,
decision making, and process automation.”

What is Data Analytics?

Data analytics is the science of examining raw data to reach certain conclusions.

Data analytics involves applying an algorithmic or mechanical process to derive

insights and running through several data sets to look for meaningful correlations. It
is used in several industries, which enables organizations and data analytics
companies to make more informed decisions, as well as verify and disprove existing
theories or models. The focus of data analytics lies in inference, which is the process
of deriving conclusions that are solely based on what the researcher already knows.

Now, let’s explore the applications of data science, big data, and data analytics.

Applications of Data Science

 Internet Search
Search engines make use of data science algorithms to deliver the best results for
search queries in seconds.

 Digital Advertisements
The entire digital marketing spectrum uses data science algorithms, from display
banners to digital billboards. This is the main reason that digital ads have higher
click-through rates than traditional advertisements.

 Recommender Systems
The recommender systems not only make it easy to find relevant products from
billions of available products, but they also add a lot to the user experience. Many
companies use this system to promote their products and suggestions in
accordance with the user’s demands and relevance of information. The
recommendations are based on the user’s previous search results.

Applications of Big Data

 Big Data for Financial Services

Credit card companies, retail banks, private wealth management advisories,

insurance firms, venture funds, and institutional investment banks all use big data
for their financial services. The common problem among them all is the massive
amounts of multi-structured data living in multiple disparate systems, which big
data can solve. As such, big data is used in several ways, including:

1. Customer analytics
2. Compliance analytics
3. Fraud analytics
4. Operational analytics
 Big Data in Communications

Gaining new subscribers, retaining customers, and expanding within current

subscriber bases are top priorities for telecommunication service providers. The
solutions to these challenges lie in the ability to combine and analyze the masses
of customer-generated data and machine-generated data that is being created
every day.

 Big Data for Retail

Whether it’s a brick-and-mortar company an online retailer, the answer to staying

in the game and being competitive is understanding the customer better. This
requires the ability to analyze all disparate data sources that companies deal with
every day, including the weblogs, customer transaction data, social media, store-
branded credit card data, and loyalty program data.

Applications of Data Analytics

 Healthcare

The main challenge for hospitals is to treat as many patients as they efficiently
can, while also providing a high. Instrument and machine data are increasingly
being used to track and optimize patient flow, treatment, and equipment used in
hospitals. It is estimated that there will be a one percent efficiency gain that could
yield more than $63 billion in global healthcare savings by leveraging software
from data analytics companies.

 Travel

Data analytics can optimize the buying experience through mobile/weblog and
social media data analysis. Travel websites can gain insights into the customer’s
preferences. Products can be upsold by correlating current sales to the
subsequent browsing increase in browse-to-buy conversions via customized
packages and offers. Data analytics that is based on social media data can also
deliver personalized travel recommendations.

 Gaming

Data analytics helps in collecting data to optimize and spend within and across
games. Gaming companies are also able to learn more about what their users like
and dislike.

 Energy Management

Most firms are using data analytics for energy management, including smart-grid
management, energy optimization, energy distribution, and building automation in
utility companies. The application here is centered on the controlling and
monitoring of network devices and dispatch crews, as well as managing service
outages. Utilities have the ability to integrate millions of data points in the network
 performance and gives engineers the opportunity to use the analytics to monitor
the network.

How Are These Technologies Impacting the Economy?

Data has become the engine that drives almost all of today’s activities, no matter if
they’re in the fields of healthcare, technology, education, research, or retail.
Additionally, business orientation has evolved from a product-focused model to a
data-focused one. Companies of all sizes value information, no matter how trivial
that data may seem at first glance. Information analysis and visualization helps
marketers and analysts acquire actionable business insights. This demand has
created a need for experts who can pull useful, meaningful insights out of the
terabytes of data available today.

While big data helps banking, retail, and other industries by supplying important
technologies like fraud-detection and operational analysis systems, data analytics
enables industries like banking, energy management, healthcare, travel, and
transport develop new advancements by utilizing historical, and data-based trend
analysis. Data science expands on that in more ways by enabling companies to
explore new strategies in scientific discovery, medical advancements, web
development, digital advertisements, ecommerce – literally, anything you can
imagine.

What Does a Data Scientist, Big Data Professional and Data Analyst Do?

In an effort to better understand the whole data science vs. data analytics
comparison, let’s take a look at what each occupation does.

Data scientists work closely with business stakeholders to gain an understanding of

their goals, and figure out how to use data to meet those goals. They are responsible
for cleaning and organizing data, collecting data sets, mining data for patterns,
refining algorithms, integrating and storing data, and building training sets.

As for Big Data professionals, well, the term “Big Data” is no longer a “big” thing
when describing a career or job position. Big Data professionals are now known
more as analytics professionals who review, analyze, and report on the massive
amounts of data stored and maintained by the company. These professionals
identify the challenges of Big Data and devise solutions, employ fundamental
statistical techniques, improve the quality of data for reporting and analysis, and
access, modify, and manipulate the data.

Finally, data analysts collect, clean, and study data sets to turn them into actionable
resources to help solve problems or meet goals within the organization.
If it seems that the three occupations have a significant amount of overlap, that’s
because they do! Each business has its own structure and procedures, and you are
bound to see some blurring of the distinctions between these positions. Perhaps, in
some companies, the data scientist wears multiple hats.

Skills Required to Become a Data Scientist

 Education: 88 percent have master’s degrees, and 46 percent have PhDs

 In-depth knowledge of SAS or R. For data science, R is generally preferred.

 Python coding: Python is the most common coding language that is used in data
science, along with Java, Perl, and C/C++.

 Hadoop platform: Although not always a requirement, knowing the Hadoop

platform is still preferred for the field. Having some experience in Hive or Pig is
also beneficial.

 SQL database/coding: Although NoSQL and Hadoop have become a significant

part of data science, it is still preferred if you can write and execute complex
queries in SQL.

 Working with unstructured data: It is essential that a data scientist can work with
unstructured data, whether on social media, video feeds, or audio.

Skills Required to Become a Big Data Specialist

 Analytical skills: These skills are essential for making sense of data, and
determining which data is relevant when creating reports and looking for solutions.

 Creativity: You need to have the ability to create new methods to gather, interpret,
and analyze a data strategy. Mathematics and statistical skills: Good, old-
fashioned “number crunching” is also necessary, be it in data science, data
analytics, or big data.

 Computer science: Computers are the backbone of every data strategy.

Programmers will have a constant need to come up with algorithms to process
data into insights.

 Business skills: Big data professionals will need to have an understanding of the
business objectives that are in place, as well as the underlying processes that
drive the growth of the business and its profits.

Skills Required to Become a Data Analyst

 Programming skills: Knowing programming languages, such as R and Python,

are imperative for any data analyst.

 Statistical skills and mathematics: Descriptive and inferential statistics, as well as

experimental designs, are required skills for data scientists.

 Machine learning skills

 Data wrangling skills: The ability to map raw data and convert it into another
format that enables more convenient consumption of the data

 Communication and data visualization skills

 Data intuition: It is crucial for a professional to be able to think like a data analyst.

Salary Trends

Although they are in the same domain, each of these professionals—data scientists,
big data specialists, and data analysts—earn varied salaries.

Data Scientist Salary

According to Glassdoor, the average base salary for a data scientist is over
$117,000 per year. (Php 5,850,000.00)

Big Data Specialist Salary

According to Glassdoor, the average base salary for a big data specialist is over
$104,000 per year. (Php 5,200,000.00)

Data Analyst Salary

According to Glassdoor, the average base salary for a data analyst is over $69,000
per year. (Php 3,450,000.00)

Of course, these are just averages and will vary based on several factors. Many
professionals earn—or have the potential to earn—higher salaries with the right
qualifications.